From Naliya to Oxford

A small village with population less than 5000. In the border of India, very close to Pakistan. Closest city is 100kms away and the only connecting narrow-gauge train - The Naliya Queen - runs only once a day and stops in the mid of the desert when the wind is strong. It also stops if you come shouting and waving to the driver, and he recognizes you.

My high school years were spent here, inside and around the Air Force campus. We had three teachers to cover our core subjects, not bad looking at 14 students in the class. So it was a close knit family atmosphere where external teachers used to be very supportive too, to the extent of bumping up the grades after a long chat with teachers and parents on the "hardships" faced by the students (over tea, samosaas and fish-fries).

The place itself holds many memories. A short walk from Naliya Cantt station takes you to the water tank, the only one there. Climbing to the top with a book and sitting there for ages with a view of unbroken desert for kilometers on one side.

In addition to the beautiful beaches (and the fearsome jelly-fish), images of Rani-kuaan is bound tightly from that past... these were step-wells built earlier by regional kings for their queens to take bath. While exploring the desert in my rusty-bike, I remember running into quite a few of those, some preserved and some abandoned. In the scorching summer, the insides of the rani-kuaans was nice and kool. Not a olfactory delight though, as many used it as a place to relieve themselves!

Things were not all rosy, during tense moments between India and Pakistan. The AirForce unit had the cool MIG 29s and amongst other vehicles, huge trucks called KrAZ which had tires taller than a man (I did get to drive one of those, though it was just handling the steering wheel while the driver was handling the sophisticated gears, brakes etc). A siren in the evening was a signal for us to close the lights, or heavily blanket the windows in case there is exam the following day. This was to avoid being marked a residential area from the air and being bombed!

This fall, I will be going to Oxford. I heard that it is a tough nut to break and then experienced the rigorous selection process. Now, it might be the charm of studying at the 800 year old University and getting associated with such great minds, or the excitement of having made it, or maybe the fervour of feeling young as a student once again, that makes me want to go and start there sooner. While I step into this new journey, Naliya is in my thoughts as maybe that was the place where the ground was made fertile and the seeds of curiosity were sown. Maybe it was the desert which taught the lessons on adventure:

 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. " -Mark Twain